


With A Cause (the Loyalty Is Earned remix)

by tielan



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-04-12 20:48:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4494210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>S.H.I.E.L.D may be gone, but allegiances are not so easily shed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With A Cause (the Loyalty Is Earned remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [geckoholic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/gifts).
  * Inspired by [She's A Rebel](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3526451) by [geckoholic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/pseuds/geckoholic). 



**rudder**

Phil is angry and a little bit lost. Maria gets that.

He’s from a generation that were told that their job would be there for them through thick and thin; in and out – that they’d be with a career to their dying day. And then life happened, technology happened, change happened.

But Maria is from a generation that watched the Berlin Wall fall, that watched the new millenium come in, that saw the twin towers fall. The old world is gone; welcome to the new, where change is the only constant and everything that used to be forever is now temporary – and certainties can become ephemeral in an instant.

Still, it stings to be accused of disloyalty; as though she has the privilege to cling to the remnants of S.H.I.E.L.D – a woman whom few knew and fewer liked, and nobody thought deserved the position she had. There are limits to her patience.

“So,” Stark says, walking into her office and sitting down in her visitor’s chair like he owns the place, “I hear you’re working for me now.”

Maria sits back in her chair and folds her hands over her stomach. “Actually, I’m working for the Avengers’ Initiative,” she said.

“Of which I’m a part.”

“But not the leader.”

“Remind me: whose company is paying your salary?”

“Pepper Potts’.”

“And whose name is on the cheque?”

“It’s an electronic transfer,” she tells him, smiling.

He rolls his eyes. “Do you ever stop?”

“Do you?”

“Reciprocal rhetorical questions, interesting.” He sits up, dark eyes sharp and intent. “So, what’s your Prime Directive?”

“Exterminate HYDRA.”

“Using the Avengers?”

“Using the Avengers who are willing to be used for that purpose.”

“Rogers, Romanoff, and Barton? Sounds like a comedy trio.” Stark eyes her like a serpent he’s about to clutch to his bosom. “Is this a vendetta, Agent Hill?”

“Is Thor’s determination to find the scepter a vendetta?”

“Maybe. But he’s no fun to argue with.”

“I’ll have to take a page out of his book, then. The opportunity to deny Tony Stark fun should never be passed by.”

He presses a hand to his chest, where the ARC reactor used to sit before he had it removed. “Do you always aim for the heart?”

It’s a wide open opportunity and Maria’s control is good – but not that good. “When I’m not aiming for the balls.”

Stark regards her a moment, stunned. Then he grins. “You know, I almost feel sorry for HYDRA.”

* * *

**chameleon**

“Carter, on me.”

She hasn’t been in the CIA for long enough to know what the summary summons might mean from her boss; but from the way her co-workers avoid meeting her gaze she’s going with ‘not good’.

Section Chief Tom Harris indicates she should shut the door behind her, and no sooner has the latch clicked behind her, then he asks, “What do you know about Maria Hill?”

“She was the Deputy Director of S.H.I.E.L.D before it fell. Known associate with Steve Rogers, currently working with Stark Industries.”

“That’s the public file. What’s her background?”

“From Chicago – has a father there, estranged. She came from the Marines – communications and intelligence analysis – before making the switch to S.H.I.E.L.D Operations Academy.”

“But S.H.I.E.L.D had a Communications branch.”

“Communications, Intelligence, and Data Analysis, sir.”

“So what’s she doing in Operations?”

Sharon hesitates, like it’s never occurred to her before. “I don’t know, sir. We weren’t close.”

And while the second is true – they worked together twice on missions, which hardly counts as ‘close’ – Sharon knows perfectly well what Maria was doing in Operations. After all, it was Aunt Peggy who recruited Maria into S.H.I.E.L.D, whose word brought Maria to the notice of Melinda ‘the Cavalry’ May who sponsored her into the Academy.

She ventures a question, making sure to sound querying, uncertain. “What’s the CIA’s interest in Hill?”

“She’s stirring the Congressional soup. And we don’t know who she’s working for, what she wants, what she’s going to tip over to get it. Chances are she knows where all the skeletons are buried, and with Fury down, she’s the one who could give us access if we knew how to get at her.” He eyes Sharon keenly. “Don’t worry, we won’t ask that of you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t thank me yet.” Harris leans back in his chair. “What do you know of Bucky Barnes?”

“Lieutenant with the US Army during World War II, best friend of Steve Rogers. Died on a mission in Europe.”

The Section Chief snorts and hands her a tablet with a single image on it – recent, judging by the date and the backdrop which shows a banner advertising the Fourth July celebrations. The man is hunched, his hands stuck deep in the pockets of his hoodie, and beneath the rough growth of beard, his expression hunted, and more: _haunted_. “Apparently not.”

* * *

**collaborator**

The first morning, Melinda finds him standing in front of the board as though in a trance. She barely glances at the scratchings of the panel, instead noting the marks on his hands – red and shiny where the handle of the knife pressed into his flesh.

“Coulson?”

Phil’s shoulders jerk, like she’s just surprised him. It gives her the first indication of how deep his rabbit hole has gone. “May. What—?” Then he turns back to look at the night’s work. “Oh.”

“As wall decor goes,” she says, keeping her voice light and her tone dry, “I prefer the more classic styles, not so much 1970s modern.”

“Guess I was in the mood for something a little different.”

“Clearly,” she comes alongside him and studies the marks, the length and breadth of them. “You did all this last night?”

“Some of it.” When she cocks an eyebrow at him, he adds, “Garrett did most of it while they had the Bus.”

Her breath catches as realisation hits her, hard, like a fist in her breastbone.

_after the initial physical recovery, the subject began to deteriorate mentally, displaying hypergraphia, aphasia, catatonia, or just complete psychosis._

“I couldn’t sleep,” Phil is saying, having missed her reaction. “And these sketches were bothering me, like…a splinter in my head. I needed to get it out.”

Melinda manages to find her voice. It even sounds mostly normal. “And is it out now?”

“Seeing as I’m not drawing on everything in sight, I think so.” He looks over his work and winces. “But given that Garrett went crazy shortly after he started drawing on everything in sight, I don’t think this is a good thing.”

“I didn’t want to say it first.” She studies the board. “Has Skye seen this?”

“Not yet.” Phil glances at her. “You want to see if she has the same reaction.”

“She took the serum, too, but she’s been normal. Perfectly healthy, no issues. Nothing like this.”

“You think it’s related to her 0-8-4 status?”

“I think it’s worth running a controlled test.”

“She’s not going to be happy about that.”

“She joined S.H.I.E.L.D – or what used to be S.H.I.E.L.D – we’re not here to make her happy.”

Phil takes a moment or two to think about it, but Melinda knows him and the way he thinks. He’ll come around to it.

“Help me put this away,” he says at last. “We’ll photograph it later, start giving her the photos. And keep an eye on her – as you’ll be keeping an eye on me.”

Years ago – before Bahrain – she might have said _count on it_. She’s not that flippant, laughing woman anymore.

Then again, Melinda thinks as she helps Phil put the boards away, that woman wouldn’t have been capable of managing a group of agents without an organisation behind them. The woman who walked out of Bahrain might not be the woman who walked in, but she’s better suited to the world that’s come to be.

* * *

**agent  
**

The bar is dingy and has seen better days.

Akela takes stock of everything in it with a wary and weather eye; still, she nearly manages to miss him, hunched over in the back corner, with his back up against the wall that adjoins the neighboring garage - tyre storage, if she recalls correctly. Aged and impaired and sidelined he might be, but he still misses nothing.

"You know," comes the comment as she sits down opposite him. "I feel like this should be a joke."

"It's not already?"

"Ouch," says Nick Fury.

 


End file.
